Bush’s Worst Nightmare

FOR more than five months, the US has been trying to orchestrate a political transition in Pakistan that would keep General Pervez Musharraf in power without making a mockery of George Bush’s promotion of democracy in the Muslim world.

On Saturday, those carefully laid plans fell apart spectacularly. Musharraf’s move to seize emergency powers and abandon the constitution left the Bush Administration close to its worst nightmare: a US-backed military dictator who is risking civil instability in a country with nuclear weapons and an increasingly alienated public.

Musharraf declared a state of emergency to prevent the country from tumbling into chaos and seeing an Islamic, nuclear Pakistan fall into the grip of extremists.

Khan Pitafi :Answer this: what has been the sole utility of Pakistan for the West throughout its history? It was and is the containment of communism in general and Russia in particular. First the West was afraid of communism’s potential growth in India. Then as the Soviet Union crumbled, Pakistan was initially asked to work on bringing the resources of the Central Asian states to the warm waters. But the actual purpose was to keep these states away from the suzerainty of Moscow. When the West realised that this was not possible, an obstacle was created to impede Russia’s eastward growth in the shape of an unstable Afghanistan. If you think that the US is losing in Afghanistan, you are grossly mistaken. An unstable Afghanistan, which destabilises Pakistan, meanwhile keeping Iran under pressure and sanctions too serve their purpose best. Washington does not see China and India as threats anymore. Now the real trouble is with Pakistan because it can at any time align with Russia and help stabilise the region.